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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 9541349" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Adding the word "awe" to the description doesn't do much for me. In the old definition of the word, Awe means terror or dread, usually inspired by something vastly beyond you. A man is in awe of the ocean. But for awe to not be a result of intentionally trying to make someone feel small (like a bully does) it must be unconscious. The ocean does not attempt to intimidate a man. The ocean does not care about that man, that is part of what instills awe. The moment I consider someone working to intentionally instill that feeling, I think it loses something. Now, maybe it could be argued to instead be instilling with wonder... but that isn't the skill I would use. For example, imagine a mage attempting to use magic to wow a crowd, to fill them with the wonder of magic and the power of the wizard, but not in a malicious manner... I wouldn't say "roll intimidation" I would have them roll performance. Because filling someone with wonder and beauty is the point of a performance.I don't think failure is a necessary component. If a healer goes from town to town, curing diseases, then having people swarm them when they enter a new town which has heard of them is not a result of them failing any roll. It is a result of their actions and people knowing their actions. If you've killed six people at the local bar when drunk, and then you walk into the bar... people are going to avoid you. You don't need to have failed any rolls, your actions have given you a reputation. And so it is I see with using Intimidation. Once or twice? Sure, maybe not going to get around. But if you are constantly using intimidation in all your social interactions... that gets around to people. That is notable. And it would lead to people treating you in a specific way, just as they treat the healer or the violent drunk.Sure. Many of the examples that come to mind for intimidation are one-offs. Intimidate a bandit to get the location of their lair... and it is likely that particular bandit never appears again (if the party doesn't kill them). Intimidate a pickpocket into leaving you alone... well, very often a pickpocket doesn't show up again. A shopkeep in a town you only visit once, same thing. This is pretty common when a group is traveling, because you cannot re-use every single NPC. Some of them are going to get dropped behind, and usually they are the ones with brief interactions.It is actually fairly notable that intimidation is a tactic only really considered for these short-term interactions. Anytime a PC has had an idea that the NPC is going to be a long running character (such as being a shopkeep in a town that has been stated to be a homebase) then the players almost instinctively avoid intimidation as their primary approach. Because being feared by the locals is, in the long term, poor management of their social status. And I also want to note, that if an NPC is brought back after a single interaction, then HOW the PCs interacted with that NPC is a major part of how they were brought back. If you gave the urchin a silver coin when they tried to pickpocket you, and then you find them later as part of looking for someone, they are going to treat you as a kindly person (or an easy mark), but if you bruised their arm and threatened them with death, they are going to be very unwilling to interact with you, let alone help you. This has nothing to do with failing or succeeding rolls, and just in-character logic. You don't react well to dealing with someone who threatens you showing up again and demanding something of you. You look for a way to escape and get them to leave you alone.NoI disagree the 2024 text has fixed it, because actively trying to instill awe either doesn't match with "intimidating the target" or is still the same thing. Instilling fear. Is it inevitably violence? Maybe not? But at its root, fear is always connected to violence of some sort. You do not fear a man who you do not believe can harm you or what you have built. And even when you bring awe into it... it is still there. We are not in Awe of the ocean because it is safe. It is vast, powerful, and it can kill you without ever knowing you were there, without caring that you were there. Thus, we are in awe of it, filled with exquisite terror. And the moment the ocean TRIES to intimidate you, tries to fill you with awe... it loses some of that awe it had. Because now it actually CARES about you, the insignificant human, to some degree.To avoid punitive successes as you have taken to calling them, you need to have people not react like people. Intimidation is fear, and people react differently to fear. Some people will become pleasers, who want nothing more than to offer their back for you to step on, so you don't snap their neck. Other people become belligerent, putting on a tough facade to avoid being seen as weak or cowardly. Just like, if you successfully decieve someone, it does not mean that they will never learn the truth, it does not make internally coherent sense that instilling someone with fear can never lead to a situation where they react negatively towards you. And consider, the failure of the skill check likely means you did not accomplish your goal, we can play with that a bit, setting up degrees of success, but there is a point where you fail to instill fear, and there does not logically seem to be a point where you succeed so much in instilling fear that you instill no fear, but only respect and admiration.</blockquote>

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